


Dead Man Walking

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 08:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12207597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: Sandor Clegane leaves the Quiet Isle to fulfill his heart's desire.





	Dead Man Walking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlterEgon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/gifts).



It walked, but it did not talk and it did not shout in fury nor boom mocking laughter. It fought, but without rage. It did not revel in the blood shed and the lives taken. It was an empty husk, devoid of the black soul that once dwelled within. It was not Gregor; it was merely Gregor’s body. 

Sandor hacked it to pieces. He cut one arm clean off, and chopped at its legs until it collapsed. But it still came after him, crawling. He grabbed a torch and set it aflame, and seethed as he watched it burn. He’d fantasized about not just killing Gregor, but about _burning_ him. And now he couldn't even get any satisfaction out of doing it. He'd been robbed. This thing didn’t have a mind to feel fear and pain and defeat, to know that the brother whose life he'd ruined was getting his revenge. It didn’t even scream as it burned. 

It burned and burned until there was nothing left but the scorched steel of its armor, and Sandor watched it all the while, feeling only anger and bitterness. This moment should have been so sweet, he should have felt such joy. But it was not _Gregor_ he'd killed, it was not _Gregor_ he’d burned to ashes. Gregor had died years ago beneath the Red Keep. Sandor had not gotten any revenge on Gregor and he never would.

The septons and the sparrows hastened to assure him that killing a dead man did not render him a kinslayer, as if he gave a fuck about that. 

In the days that followed, the smallfolk no longer cursed his name and spat. They finally seemed to accept that Saltpans had been the doing of an outlaw wearing the hound’s head helm that had once belonged to Sandor. 

Some people even called him a hero. 

Sandor didn’t know what to do with himself. He returned to the Quiet Isle - the brothers who worked in the stables were dismayed to see Stranger again - but it had never given him the peace the Elder Brother promised and it no longer even gave dull contentment. Within a fortnight he left. 

He took the river road west and then south to the keep he'd once called home. He'd forsworn his claim to it the day he accepted the white cloak from Joffrey, but with all that had happened in the past few years, there was no one to care if he took possession of the towerhouse and lands Tytos Lannister had awarded his grandfather. 

He tried. He stayed for two turns of the moon, but he felt even more restless there than he did among the holy brothers. Being master of a keep simply did not agree with him. When a neighboring lordling offered him his daughter’s hand in marriage, Sandor had had enough. He saddled Stranger the next day and rode north. 

He thought himself aimless. He didn’t know where he was going to go. Perhaps he'd go see how the brothers on the Quiet Isle were faring. Perhaps he’d go see what was brewing in King’s Landing these days. But when he reached the inn at the crossroads, he knew. He was going to go north and keep going north until he reached Winterfell. He was going to kneel before the little bird and apologize to her. 

He would offer her his sword. He didn’t want a keep and a wife, and he didn’t know how to be at peace. But he knew how to be a damn good shield and he wanted to serve a true lady. The prospect made him feel alive for the first time in a long time. 

There was motion behind him and to the left, and Sandor turned, expecting only the serving boy bringing his dinner at last. 

Pain bloomed in his chest, and he looked down to see a small hand twisting the knife in deeper. 

“You shouldn’t have killed Mycah.”

Sandor smiled at the little wolf bitch as he died. She’d remembered where the heart was.


End file.
